


Break it Down

by FutabaSakura



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Abuse, Gen, Suicide Attempt, Triggers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-05 09:38:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12187512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FutabaSakura/pseuds/FutabaSakura
Summary: Tags are generic. I don't want to have a few billion tags by the end of this short series which aims to let the worst of the worst have a turn under the spotlight.Everything'll be before their respective palace.





	1. Kamoshida: King, Queen and Slave

**Author's Note:**

> Content Warning: Everything Kamoshida related.  
> It'll be a horrible fic about horrible people ~~(by a horrible person)~~ and maybe, if I get that far, one decidedly _Not Bad_ person.

Fists hit faces and bones break but, _buddy_ , it’s all a game, _it’s all a game_ and someone’s gotta’ win so someone’s gonna’ lose. Sure, they may shout and scream and cry but it ends the same way each and every god damn time when people start asking why their son’s tripled his weight in bandages or their daughter’s developed the most curious tan in which her skin’s turned purple (or brown or yellow or even red sometimes), why their golden child’s not quite so keen to look them in the eye or flinches at raised voices and sudden movement; his students are so good at deflecting questions and always take responsibility – he never attacks without reason and it’s only ever to help them, honestly – and hide behind clever versions of the truth which can’t be proven after the fact but also can’t be denied: _"I got distracted and blocked the ball with my face"_ , _“I didn’t tie my laces and tripped, took another student down with me”_ , _“it’s the Tokyo subway, you know, and the carriages are cramped and some strangers are just affectionate, you know”_. ‘course, he has the principal squeezing them just a bit, around the neck usually, and he helps to ensure their… discretion.  
Sometimes though, he wishes they could dodge a punch as well as they do parental and medical interrogation, give him a challenge; show some backbone and put him, himself, on the spot for a change.  
They disappoint him. They all do.  
He supposes the dirt he has on them keeps them close at hand, too close to evade a quick slap and close enough for a quick fondle. 

It’s all a game and he knows the rules, he knows how he can exploit the game. Get a few hapless students together in a room and tell them all one of ‘em’s a loose cannon, a traitor, _dishonourable_ – no names, no pack drill - for long enough and sooner or later he’ll be able to measure their worth, see who’s been made _‘the other’_. He strikes when there’s clear vulnerability, when there’s one pushed out so far from the rest they're teetering on the edge of a cliff and so receptive to his favour or there’s one so eager to get rid of the weakest link and then it’s just a matter of gently nudging them to do something stupid – _“but it’s okay, I’ll not tell anyone but you gotta’ do something for me back, kid”_. When he has one, he can get a lot more a lot quicker.  
It gets easier each year as the arsenal of buzzwords he can use to grind them down updates. This year, _failure_ and _disappointment_ are particularly hot topics among his subjects. 

He’s a man who loves change. He likes to see the moment they break. He wants to see the moment they put themselves back together, if only to break them all over again.  
He’s learned that people are like eggs and it doesn’t take a lot of force to crack one open, much exertion to smash one against the floor. The brightest ones whose very souls glow with radiant hope and ambition have thicker shells and take a bit more but he watches them closely for they’re the most exciting. He’ll poach them with a hot touch here or a secret kiss there, he’ll scramble them furiously when they talk back or don’t follow his orders, fry them alive with insults when they _miss the shot again, **damn it**_ but it’s all in good humour, _sir_ , he just got a little passionate about the upcoming match and they all benefit from good old fashioned drill sergeant behaviour, right? Keeps them toeing the line properly; good little soldiers. They’ll drop and give him twenty on command.  
Some of them… just drop.

For a man who loves change, it’s boring when everything ends the same.

Until one day something he didn’t account for changed and the pretty one, _whatsherface_ (great bod, nice face if a little plain; Ann seems to bend over backwards for her and maybe, just maybe, if he plays his cards right he could get ‘em both and take them to new heights, top of the world, _baby_ – he’s one fifth of a royal flush and Ann’s already a queen in his back pocket) just had to go and see if she’d make it as a high jumper and how high she’d bounce off the ground. More bones broke then but she gave everyone a lesson in the forces of gravitational and kinetic energy and impact on the human body: she didn’t bounce well and probably will never bounce again. He shoulda’ been teaching physics, _she_ should’ve tried harder.

But that got people asking questions, more questions, and the jokers who dared to send him a redecorated postcard got more eyes looking his way. The thug and the psychopath, he knew, were behind it. They didn’t like him, they didn’t care for what he’s done for the school. He’s a champion, an Olympic medallist – they’d still be banging rocks together in music class, throwing their waste at a canvas in art, looking at whatever they’d find crawling in each other’s hair for biology (and growing, for home ec.) if it weren’t for him, glorious he, and the money he brought into Shujin and all he had to do was just _be himself_ and _be there_. Word spread and money started tumbling into the school, and it was all. His. Doing.  
The stupid kids couldn’t see that, couldn’t see what good things they’d give up in their misguided pursuit of “justice”. 

But it’s all fine, this is just a minor setback. 

He’s a king, the most valuable piece on the board, and he’ll come out on top, _buddy_.

He always does.


	2. Madarame: Wicked Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> today's depression says that you're better off hitting that back button (or closing the tab if there's nothing to go back to) but hey i didnt listen to it and have gone ahead and submitted this  
> ignoring it may well be something i regret in the morning when every single mistake is easier for me to see and why didnt i do this differently why didnt i make it so "A Woman" is an appropriate title why did i start writing fanfic in the first place cause lets face it i suck
> 
> last chapter's end notes are in this chapter, i think  
> what why whats going on send help

‘A man of refinement’, they call him. The polls in countless cultural magazines indicated his was company everyone wanted, but everyone knew few could have it and that was part of the thrill: who could be so lucky to steal the genius artist’s attention away from his next masterpiece for but one moment, what did it take to pique his interest?  
In person, he joked about his age, humble to a fault, but his hearing was as good now as it has ever been: when people commented in hushed words about how he’s always so well turned out _(“for an artist, he’s immaculately dressed”)_ , how he _“doesn’t distract himself with the luxuries celebrities usually afford themselves”_ and how he’s always so polite and **interesting** , they’re certain he could go absolutely anywhere and always have something to talk about, offending no one and pleasing everyone in the process, he would hear. One more than one occasion, he’s heard people whispering to their friends about how _“for a guy nearing 60, I wouldn’t mind getting to know him a little better”,_ always with a quiet giggle (though the men tended to smirk).

He quite agreed, but in accordance to his public image he couldn’t bring himself to actually say so. Yes, his tastes **were** impeccable, his art flawless; with such a discerning eye, he could see at once where a canvas or sculpture was lacking in colour or detail and work to fix it, to redeem it, to save it from mediocrity. So too could he see his students, identify the ones with potential and nurture them in a suitable environment which could accommodate their needs. Under his supervision they will turn from talentless leaden heaps to golden nuggets of infinite wonder and focused potential. As such he sometimes likened himself to an alchemist and everything he accomplished was another sentence translated of the Smaragdine Table and put him one step closer to creating his true magnum opus, his elixir of life.  
He was certain that he would achieve immortality. 

He could feel it in his bones, how close he was already. His great work, ‘Sayuri’, had put his name in the annals of history - oh, the accolades he continues to receive! - but he wanted more, **needed** more,.To transcend mortality and laugh at the reaper, he needed to carve his name into the very fabric of time itself, cauterise the wound to stop it from healing properly and bury his photograph in the subconsciousness of the world (though he wondered if publishing an autobiography or drawing a self-portrait and implanting either would be better), which meant he needed more than ‘Sayuri’. 

‘Sayuri’ wasn’t truly his, but no one else alive knew.

And it was hard.  
There were other things the public didn’t know. There were other things the public were never to know, not even suspect, lest he lose what is just a hair’s breadth out of reach: how the muses, or whichever deity governed artistic inspiration and had guided him in his prime, had turned their back on him; how he was forced by fate to find the weight of a brush too great to bear. Some things must be kept secret if he is to succeed. Though he mightn’t be able to put paint onto canvas any longer, ‘Sayuri’ showed him there are things he can paint with which don’t require him to lift a brush. 

Blood may be thicker than watercolour but if he were to gouge an artery and let it spray, he might just make it.  
His students always start out so eager…

It is in his workshops that he bleeds his students. He takes their hopes, their dreams and their passions. He watches each student paint their very being onto their preferred surface, guiding their hands as required, until at last they have nothing more to give but the credit for their art.

And why shouldn’t he be praised for what was, by all rights, his work? He taught them: they, the students, were _his_ and so it stood to reason that their works too were his. But for his guidance, they would not have created _this work_ or _that piece!_  
They never speak out when he signs their work with his name.  
He makes sure they’re too weak to, too dependent on him and, really, how could recognition ever compare to being useful to someone, being _welcome_ and _wanted_ for once?

He takes their soul and turns it into himself. It’s always a slow process and it leaves them broken every time. Though they were all capable artists, not all of his students can live without him once they’re of no further value to him and he finds a way to dismiss them.  
When he learned he had a growing collection of bodies, each one pointing to him, he entertained morbid curiosity and wondered if he could call a large enough pile of corpses shocking, call it _contemporary,_ but working to ensure his name would be in no way damaged following enquiry into each death demanded too much of his time and attention.  
He doesn’t care enough to find a better way, to spare a graveyard a few more slabs. He hasn’t the time to think of alternatives. 

Time was of the essence and he wasn’t going to stop until every household in the world owned something that was _his,_ until his name was ubiquitous, inescapable, and he was thus immortal.

 

He was so, so close.

The Phantom Thieves had no idea what fury they had wrought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kaneshiro... whenever. Seriously, I don't rightly know where to start for his chapter.  
> I especially don't want to make him a pitiable character but the only thing I can think of does just that!
> 
> Please, criticise away. Anything good would feel too weird but insults are just fine.  
> I actually kinda' like them.

**Author's Note:**

> Earlier this afternoon, I thought: _gosh golly gee, i don't hate myself quite enough_.
> 
> I'll work on Madarame... eventually.  
> And then the rest. Maybe.
> 
> break my comma key please and take away the italics


End file.
